


Do-over

by lookslikenico



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4306023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookslikenico/pseuds/lookslikenico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles had always been terrified that he would end up alone, but his nightmares were nothing compared to the empty reality of events unfolding in accordance with his greatest fears. So when - alone and abandoned - he finds himself in an anonymous dive bar drinking cheap whisky with a mysterious woman. When she offers him to try doing it all again. He finds himself saying yes. </p><p>Now he's sixteen again, with no memories of what went before, just feelings about the people around him. Will that be enough to let him change things, or will it all turn out the way it did before?</p><p>Is there any such thing as destiny? Or is the future just what we make it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to winglesswarrior for encouraging me to go forward with this - she's an amazing enabler!

It started with a bar. A bar and too many memories, which Stiles was failing to drown in his third glass of the same golden hued Bourbon his father used to drink.

The twenty-something man sat at the stained walnut bar, sticky and unclean. It seemed to Stiles an allegory of his own life. Once beautiful and full of promise, but now damaged and dulled, a shadow of what it once was. Reduced to existing in some dive bar where nobody really came and those that did barely looked each other in the eye.

Stiles stared down into the depths of his drink, the amber liquor a constant swirl around a mini vortex as his hand shifted, keeping it moving counterclockwise. Occasionally he stopped to take a sip, but not often. He no longer enjoyed the feeling of drunkenness. He knew all too well the dangers inherent in losing control. This glass was his third and it would be his last. He wanted to make it last. Wanted to stretch out the time until his inevitable departure. This nameless bar may be a dump, but it was still far better than the empty apartment that he laughingly called home. Its two bedrooms mocked him now, standing in silent judgement on all his carefully laid plans. It was proof that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't control everything. Now they were all gone and Stiles was left alone. Far from his real home with a life that was devoid of any real meaning or purpose.

He had been thinking all night. Trying to work out when it had all gone so horribly wrong. Yet, there didn't seem to be a point. No one single factor that had turned them down the wrong path. Stiles just wished with all his heart that things had turned out differently. That somehow he'd been able to do something better, smarter, _different_.

He ignored the footsteps until they stopped beside him and a beautiful, older woman took the next stool. With perfectly manicured, pearlescent pink nails long enough to almost be called talons, she removed a paper napkin from her neat snakeskin purse and laid it out smooth on the counter before her.

Stiles took a sip of his whiskey and said nothing.

"Buy a lady a drink?" Her voice was rich, with just an edge of a husky purr, designed to raise his interest, Stiles presumed,but Stiles wasn't here to pick up women, and he'd long ago learned that his kind of loneliness wasn't cured with one night stands. The meaningless company only served to highlight just what he had lost, putting it under a spotlight, rather than chasing it temporarily into the shadows.

"Not interested," Stiles said gruffly, not even bothering to look over. Like as not in this place she was a whore, looking to find her next john. All she'd find was his badge, habitually clipped to the right side of his belt, proclaiming his status as a detective in the San Francisco police department. 

He caught her careless shrug out of the corner of his eye, seemingly unconcerned at his rejection as she signalled his order at the bartender, who reluctantly put down her phone with whatever game she'd been engrossed in long enough to pour the woman the same brand of Bourbon that was sat before Stiles.

The woman sighed contentedly at her first sip, setting the glass down before her, cradled in those pink talons. "Ahhh, a man of good taste," she said, ignoring Stiles' body language, all of which practically screamed that he wanted to be left alone.

"It's what my father drank," he told her. He frowned, not knowing what had made him offer up such a personal piece of information to a complete stranger.

"Then good taste must be genetic. Like father, like son. Was he a policeman as well?"

Stiles looked up, surprise finally getting her his full attention. She must have been in her mid-forties, wrinkles starting to show at the corners of her clear green eyes and full lips. High cheekbones gave her an almost regal appearance, especially with the way her jet black hair fell in soft waves around her face. She smiled, seeming amused, and flicked a talon toward the slight bulge where his gun was holstered beneath his jacket, then another to his beltline, where the shining edge of his badge was just visible.

"He was a sheriff," Stiles said, slowly. 

"Ahhh," she purred once again. "Small town boy, come to the big city? There's a story in that, I bet."

"Not one that I generally tell," Stiles said, going first gruffly. It made something pang inside him. A reminder of someone who was far better at gruff than he had ever been able to master.

"But a story nonetheless," she surmised. She took a leisurely sip of her drink, plump lips resting at the edge of the glass as the golden liquid slid into her delectable mouth. Stiles told himself that he neither noticed nor cared, though his throat felt suddenly dry enough that he knocked back half of what he had left in his own glass, feeling it burn its way down to his stomach. "How is life working out for you in the bay? Is it everything you ever dreamed of?"

Stiles didn't answer her, but clearly he didn't need to as she continued, "The thing people don't always appreciate about dreams is that they are so often actually nightmares. Life can turn out not the way you wanted, but the way you feared."

"What do you know about my life?" Stiles snapped, fear and suspicion rising like bile in his throat.

"Very little," she said in a nothing tone that did little to settle him. "Save that you are a young, handsome man sitting alone in this bar looking as though all meaning and joy has disappeared from his life. Are you asking yourself where it all went wrong? Trying to devise what you would have done differently?"

"No," he said, turning back to stare once more into the depths of his drink.

"No?" She sounded intrigued, leaning forward, her low cut top showing a little too much cleavage. "You think you'd make all the same choices?"

"Yes," Stiles said, firmly. He'd thought about this, far too much most probably. "Everything I did, everything choice I made, it was the right one for what I knew at the time. Who I was then."

"But if you were the you now, making those choices?" she prompted.

"But I'm not," Stiles said, slamming the rest of his drink down his throat and getting up, ripping his wrinkled overcoat from the back of the barstool and pulling it on, preparing to head out once more into the dark and rainy San Francisco night. Leave this woman and her useless 'what if' questions behind.

She caught his arm, talons shifting to grip tight enough that he stopped. Instinct froze him, prey assessing an unknown predator, suddenly wary. "You could be," she said, her voice dropping. He swallowed, thinking about the exits and his chances if he made a break for it. "You're not happy, Stiles." Of course, she knew his name. He was a fool - one who should have walked away the moment she sat down. "You've not been happy for a long time."

"Well, since you clearly know everything about me…" Stiles said, shifting slightly as he prepared to make a break for it.

"I know very little about you other than your name and your heart's desire. You called to me, Stiles. Your pain and your wish that things could be different. And they can be."

He hesitated, knowing she'd caught him. His curiosity and need to know had always been his weakness. "It's all in the past, gone," he said though it felt like a weak defence.

"And if it wasn't? You're a different person now, Stiles. Would you have made the same choices, with who you are now?"

He wouldn't, he knew. He couldn't. He couldn't be suspicious of people he'd come to know and love. He couldn't be accepting and friendly towards those who would end up seeking to cause harm to him and his. He didn't have to admit that though, not to her. "What about the space-time continuum? Don't we have to worry about ruining it? All that timey wimey bullshit?" he quipped, falling back of his old trick of joking his way out of a situation. 

"There are millions of realities. An infinite number of possibilities in this universe."

Stiles snorted. "So, you have the power to… transport me to an alternate dimension. To relive my life. Knowing what I know now. So I can try and make things turn out better?" His tone dripped cynicism like hot tar, yet she seemed unmoved, treating his question as serious.

"Not knowing what you know now. You wouldn't retain memories of this future. I would transport you to a reality that mirrored this one to the point of your arrival. For all intents and purposes, you would have lived your life to that point. You would share the same memories of the past and the same hopes and dreams for the future."

"So what's the point then? I already told you that I wouldn't change the decisions I made at the time I made them. If I don't know any better, then you'd just be dooming me to make the same mistakes all over again."

“You won’t know everything,” she promised him though her talons were still gripping his arm with an intensity that suggested that she would have drawn blood if it weren’t for his layers. “But it’ll be different.”

Stiles curled his hand into a fist, testing her hold on him, but it seemed like iron. An escape route was of no use if he couldn’t even get out of her clutches. “Different how?” he ground out, every muscle tensed against the hold.

“I can give you a do over, but you won’t know exactly how things went wrong the first time. What do you know about dementia?” she asked him, cocking her head to the side in a way that sent her long, dark hair waterfalling over one shoulder.

“My mom died of frontotemporal dementia,” Stiles replied tightly. _And thank you so much for that particular memory._

She didn’t seem at all fazed by the news, instead smiling and inclining her head. “Then you know,” she said, pushing forward enthusiastically. “When you get dementia, your memories may go, but the way your experiences make you feel will remain. It will be like that. You won’t remember living this life before, but the connections. The instincts. They will guide you.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes and twisted more in her iron grip. “Dementia? Is that what you’re offering me?” he ground out. “A future where I’ve lost my mind? Living in an imagined past when I’m actually surrounded by people who just think I’m crazy? Trying to remind myself I’m twenty-seven, not seventeen? That’s no offer at all. I’d rather deal with the reality of life than some imagined, rose-tinted lie.”

“No,” the woman said firmly, tugging on his arm and pulling her bodily toward her with more strength than her slight frame would have suggested was possible. “No lies. A new reality. The effects without the disease.”

Stiles shook his head, not believing her promises - they had to be empty. The one thing that life had always held constant was that there was only one chance. Once that had gone wrong, as it had in his so many times, that was it. You lived with the consequences.

“You don’t believe me - but you need this, Stiles Stilinski. So, I’ll give you what you need.” 

Before he could even protest, she pulled him in, knocking him off balance and careening toward her. She caught his lips in his. They were soft, intoxicating and he melted into the kiss as the world around him faded away.


	2. Back to the Start

Stiles’ feet were wet. Which, he knew, was because he’d just landed in a stream that he’d been trying to jump over. The only really surprising thing about his wet feet was that he was surprised. It was a feeling that came over him, then vanished. As though there’d been something different about his life for an instant.

Scott was talking though, moving ahead of him with nicely dry feet. The water hadn’t bothered him, he’d just jumped from rock to rock like some kind of mountain goat. It was so unfair. Stiles shook off the momentary spike of jealousy because Scott was his friend, they were like brothers and agility didn’t make the guy perfect, after all.

Stiles was still comforting himself with a mental list of all the things he could do that Scott couldn’t when he realised his friend was talking.

“Smell things?” he asked, holding back a laugh as they headed away from the river into the woods that made up the Beacon Hills Preserve. The day was crisp and clear. The trees standing tall with their bare fall branches, leaving a soft layer of autumnal leaves underfoot. “Like what?”

“Like the mint mojito gum in your pocket.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I don’t even have any…” He felt his pocket, mouth turning down as he pulled a single piece out from the depths. How long had it even been since he’d worn this jacket. Maybe the end of the last school year. Definitely not throughout the summer, when the most he’d needed was a flannel shirt over one of his long line of statement t-shirts, which made up his wardrobe.

He looked at Scott, who shrugged and turned away, walking on through the woods as Stiles hurried to catch up. “So, all this started with a bite?” he asked, which, of course, sent Scott off into some kind of panic spiral about the possibility of infection. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, yet when Stiles dropped his lycanthropy punchline, having really got Scott going about the possibility of some terrible disease, it just didn’t feel right.

Or, rather, it felt too right. Which was wrong - after all, there were no such things as werewolves. Surely. For once, Stiles found himself falling silent as they walked the rest of the way to where Scott swore he’d dropped his inhaler. Stiles couldn’t get his mind away from werewolves, and the fact that Friday was a full moon.

“This was it,” Scott said again, throwing his arms up as he looked around. “The body was here. The deer came running, I dropped my inhaler…”

Stiles was about to make a comment about the body being moved when he felt a prickling on the back of his neck and an awareness of another presence. He turned, just as a familiar figure walked into sight through the trees. Derek Hale seemed surprised and a little thrown that Stiles had noticed him so quickly as if he weren’t used to encountering someone so observant. The surprise was quickly masked with an emotionless expression as he walked closer to them.

“What are you doing here?” Derek demanded in a tone that was clearly meant to be threatening, but which just made Stiles want to smile. “This is private property.”

“Sorry,” Stiles said, taking a step forward, ignoring the incredulous expression on Scott’s face as he did so. “We were just looking for my friend’s inhaler. He thought he dropped it last night in the woods. They’re kinda expensive and a pain in the ass to repl…” he broke off as Derek reached into his pocket and tossed the inhaler at Scott, who caught it without any problems.

“Private property,” Derek repeated, before turning and heading back into the woods.

“Come on. I have to get to work,” Scott said, starting back off in the direction of Stiles’ jeep. It took Stiles a moment to react, but he slapped a hand across Scott’s chest.

“Dude,” he proclaimed. “That was Derek Hale. You remember, right? He’s only a few years older than us.”

“Remember what?” 

“His family,” Stiles said, his heart going out to Derek at the thought of what the guy must have been through. No wonder he wasn’t exactly Mr. Nice Guy now. “There was a fire at his house like ten years ago. Most of them died and he and his sister, I think, left town after.”

Scott looked into the woods, the way Derek had gone. “I wonder what he’s doing back.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to come back here - god, this place must have so many bad memories for him,” Stiles agreed as they headed back to the jeep.

*****  
Stiles stood on the field in his lacrosse uniform looking at coach and wondering if he’d always seemed this far off the planet. Stiles was certain that he’d cared more about lacrosse last year. Was sure that coach’s random pep talks had been the centre of his world. Now it just seemed like the guy seriously needed a priority adjustment. Sure, lacrosse was cool and all - it just wasn’t the be all and end all of everything.

As the guys dispersed to their starting position for try outs, Stiles headed for the bench wondering when his world had stopped feeling like it’d come to an end if he didn’t make the team. It was probably a healthy change of heart he decided, as he sat open-mouthed, watching Jackson and Scott go head to head. With Scott wiping the floor with the team captain.

His jokes about lycanthropy the other day hadn’t seemed very funny then, ringing a little too true. Now, though, Stiles was sure.

He slipped out of practice early, stopping off for the largest pile of books he could sweet talk out of the librarian, which was a whole lot, since she had been a friend of his mom’s and seemed to think he was the smartest kid in town. Stiles wondered if she’d ever met Lydia Martin, but he wasn’t going to argue, when he could lean off-kilter on the desk and smile a wide smile and flash amber brown eyes at her and walk out with his own body weight in myths and legends with the knowledge that he’d not be charged late fines.

The books provided a good counterpoint to what the internet could provide. Stiles knew better than to simply trust a web page, even though his google-fu was practically black belt these days.

He let himself be guided by his instinct - it seemed particularly on point tonight. He rejected some things out of hand, out and out laughed at others. And, most weirdly, stomped down on the itching thought that the quickest way to solve this problem would be to phone Derek Hale. Not that he had the guy’s number, or had ever said more than a handful of words to him - those being the ones when the guy was in full, grumpy old man, get off my lawn, mode.

He didn’t even notice that the sun had risen and that he’d been researching all night when the knock came at his bedroom door, scaring him half out of his skin. Scott, of course, all well rested and smiley-bouncey when all Stiles wanted to do was get him to understand. That this was real and actually happening. With Scott sitting on his bed, Stiles just couldn’t stop talking, until Scott was pissed off and leaving and thinking that Stiles was winding him up, which he totally wasn’t and he just had to make the guy understand. The full moon was tonight and all Scott cared about was Allison. It all came down to _Allison_ \- a girl his friend had only just met and Scott was willing to throw away his own well being and that of everyone around him for this _girl_.

“I’m trying to help. With the full moon will be too hard to resist and there’s no going back. The moon causes you to change, it’s also when your bloodlust will be at its peak. You need to be careful - learn control.” Stiles was utterly convinced of that in his gut - that it was possible to learn control. Nothing in anything he had read suggested it, but how else had werewolves been able to fly under the radar for so long, if there wasn’t a way out of turning into a mindless killing machine every twenty-eight days? It was the only thing that made sense. Only Scott wasn’t listening - his mind and priority still clearly on Allison.

“You’ll be putting her in danger, Scott,” Stiles said, appealing to his friend’s better senses. He couldn’t just walk all over him and try and force Scott to give up that date. The guy was practically twitterpated.

“I can’t just cancel!” Scott proclaimed.

“Why not? Tell her - tell her that you fucked up and you’re grounded. Tell her that you have too much homework. Tell her that you really want to, but could you guys just postpone for a couple of nights. Then take her out on a date that she’ll never forget. Look - I’ll even put money toward it. Twenty bucks - it’s not like I’m gonna be spending it myself. Face it, I’m dating vicariously through you til college anyhow.”

“Dude… Lydia Martin’s gonna notice you one of these days,” Scott said, twisting his face up in sympathy.

“No, she’s not,” Stiles said, dropping down onto the bed. “But - that’s okay, you know,” he added, surprising even himself. “The fantasy could never live up to the reality anyhow. We’d be a disaster, dating. But, this isn’t about me and Lydia. It’s about you and Allison. Postpone the date - please.”

“It’s a party - those don’t come along every day,” Scott pleaded, but Stiles could tell he was weakening.

“It’s a terrible venue for a first date anyhow. Do something more personal.”

“What if she meets someone else?”

Stiles slumped, rolling his eyes. “Fine - I’ll go. I’ll keep an eye on Allison and make sure that she doesn’t do anything you wouldn’t like.” As if she would. Stiles was entirely convinced that those two had some kind of love for the ages crap going on already. It was truly sickening.

He watched as Scott thought it through, the gears of his brain practically visible on his face. “Fine,” Scott said, eventually. “I’ll stay home tonight. But just for tonight - I’m not giving up my social life for whatever insane theory you have going.”

Stiles grinned widely and slapped his best friend on the back. “Scotty, my man! What social life?” he joked, before heading for his closet. He had a party to go to - and a feeling that maybe he wanted to wear something that wasn’t plaid.

*****

It was official. Stiles was invisible. It was like everyone at this damn party was already paired off and trying to prove to everyone else just how into each other they were. It was practically a damn orgy to hard beats around a swimming pool. He hadn’t even found Allison yet.

Stiles cradled his watered down beer as he walked out of Lydia’s house into the backyard, scanning the crowds and trying to ignore the corner where Jackson was dry humping his strawberry blonde goddess whilst she looked around, appeared almost bored with it all. Lydia was far too good for him and one day Stiles knew she would wake up to that fact. Maybe.

He froze at the top of the steps, red solo cup halfway to his mouth, as he saw none other than Derek Hale standing like some kind of Grecian statue across the way. Seriously, it was like the guy was carved from stone and those cheekbones weren’t helping. Their eyes met and Stiles made a decision. Thrusting his beer into the hand of a passing drunk girl, he pushed through the crowds to confront Derek - who actually seemed to be surprised at the move.

“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked, pulling himself to full height from his usual slouch and realising that Derek wasn’t actually that much taller than him.

“I’m looking for Scott,” Derek said, his brows furrowing as if this wasn’t going to his plan.

“Scott’s not here. Scott’s staying home tonight. Like a sensible person,” Stiles said, glancing significantly at the clouds above them. The moon would be up there somewhere and Stiles just couldn’t shift the feeling that Derek knew very well what was going on.

“Why would he do that?” Derek asked, definitely looking confused now.

“Because I worked it out and convinced him it was a bad idea to be here tonight. I can help him,” Stiles said, then let out and unmanly squeak as Derek grabbed him by the arm of his dark blue dress shirt and hauled him away from the party into the shadows at the side of the house.

“What do you know?” Derek asked him, managing to seemingly tower over Stiles, even without a massive height difference.

“I _know_ ,” Stiles hissed, not willing to come out and say it. “And I think you know too. Don’t you?”

Derek drew his lips together, screwing them up, clearly hating being put on the spot. “Scott and I… we’re brothers now,” he ground out.

“Did you do this to him?” Stiles asked, wide-eyed and really to try and beat Derek down if he said yes. Maybe - probably - he’d fail, going up against a beast of the kind that Derek seemingly was, but Scott was his bro - he couldn’t let that kind of thing slide.

“Does he really think it’s that bad?” Derek asked. “That he can run faster, hear better, be stronger?”

Stiles snorted. “Dude - Scott’s home right now, having cancelled on a date with the girl of his fucking _dreams_ because he can’t control whatever ‘better’ you say he now has. You’re gonna have a hard time convincing him that what that is? Is anything but a curse.”

“He’ll live,” Derek said, looking unconvinced. “You did the right thing, getting him to stay home. It’s not safe out there tonight. And not because of what Scott is now. It’s not safe for _him_.”

“What do you mean.”

“Hunters,” Derek pronounced. “If they catch him, they’ll kill him.”

“ _Kill_ him - but he’s done nothing wrong!” Stiles exclaimed, flailing and wide-eyed. Already his thoughts were half to Scott’s house, determined and ready to keep his friend safe.

“That… doesn’t matter to them. They don’t care about any of that,” Derek said tightly. “Keep your friend home. Make sure that he keeps it a secret - especially from his girlfriend.”

“Well, I don’t think you can call her his girlfri…” Stiles caught the look on Derek’s face and tailed off. “Right. Yup. No telling Allison. Got that big guy. Not a problem. Secret. Never speak a word of it.”

There was a shout from the house and Stiles looked round in time to see a guy from his chem class bellyflop into the pool. Fucking idiot. When Stiles looked round again, Derek was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning, updates in this are likely to be slow, because I'm having to review season 1 episodes as I write, so I can decide what to keep and what to change. At first, things are likely to follow canon pretty closely, but get gradually further and further off track. Probably. Hope you'll come ride with me!


	3. I Don't Believe It

The smell of the boys locker room seemed to bother Stiles more today than usual, which was weird since he figured that he had a solid immunity to the stench of sweat and unwashed gym kit that had been put away slightly damp and just festered. It wasn’t like it smelled any different than it had last week, though now Stiles was thinking about it, it had bothered him yesterday as well.

He had just finished pulling on his lacrosse gear when Scott walked in. “Dude,” he said, pulling Scott over to the corner so that they could talk. “Dude - things just took a turn for the really fucking serious! I was talking to Derek at the party and--”

“What was Derek Hale doing at the party?” Scott interrupted, pulling off his shirt and stuffing it, crumpled, into his locker as they talked.

“Probably making sure you weren’t there - not important, Scott.”

“Was Allison at the party?”

“Also not important, Scotty. Focus here because I’m trying to tell you something that might quite literally save your life.”

“She was there, wasn’t she? Oh god, don’t tell me she was there with Derek. Because he has that whole older guy leather look going on and I just can’t compete with that, Stiles!”

“Derek wasn’t there with Allison,” Stiles promised.

“Then why were you talking to him? You were supposed to--”

“Hunters, Scott! There are hunters in town who _kill werewolves_!” Stiles explained, resorting to shock tactics to get Scott off the Allison trainwreck path. Thankfully it worked.

“Hunters?” Scott asked, dumbly. 

“Yes! Exactly. And we’re not talking about the type that shoot bear and deer and cute furry animals. Because, honestly, you and Derek - you’re not that cute. And definitely not that furry. We’re talking about the chase you down and shoot you full of arrows, or bullets, or… Bad, Scott. It’s bad. We have a very real, very fucking scary problem on our hands and we gotta keep you safe!”

Out of their view, Coach Finstock blew on his whistle, calling everyone outside. “So it’s really important,” Stiles said, grabbing bits of Scott’s lacrosse kit and dumping them haphazardly into his arms. “Really, really, vitally important that you just act like normal. So get out there onto the pitch and just… Be normal, Scott. Be normal!”

*****

Which, of course, meant that after a solid five minutes of Jackson baiting him and after Coach comparing him to the corpse of his dead grandmother, meant that Scott practically wolfed out in the middle of the field after almost dislocating Jackson’s shoulder.

As everyone else on the team ran toward Jackson, Stiles grabbed Scott and hauled him toward the locker rooms. “Breath Scott, just breath,” he said as they hurried inside. “You gotta focus.” He had no idea if that would actually help, but it felt like the right thing to say. As they disappeared inside, Stiles glanced round to see if anyone else had noticed their absence and caught sight of Derek Hale standing over the other side of field, doing possibly the worst impression ever of someone trying to be stealthy. “Dude, get over here and help us,” Stiles said, not even raising his voice as he disappeared inside. 

Stiles was almost carrying Scott as they tumbled into the locker room, Scott pulling out of his grasp, gasping for breath as he did so. Stiles scrambled away. He wasn’t going to leave his best friend to deal with this on his own.

Scott lifted his head, eyes glowing gold and fangs lining his mouth and when he screamed for Stiles to back off, Stiles hit him as hard as he could.

Scott roared and pounced, just as a hand grasped the back of Stiles’ shirt and bodily hauled him out of the way, sending him reeling across the locker room floor to slide to safety against the lockers.

Derek Hale roared back at Scott, his knees bent and clawed hands reaching away - a posture of dominance rather than imminent threat. It was enough to shock Scott to a halt and out of his rage. As Stiles watched, first Scott then Derek let go of the change.

“What happened?” Scott asked, pulling his lacrosse helmet from his head and looking confused and disorientated.

“You lost control,” Derek said, with utter disdain. “You tried to kill your best friend.”

“It’s like I said before,” Stiles said, pulling himself up off the floor and going to stand by Derek. “It’s your anger. It’s your pulse rising.” He knew before they even started talking about it that it would go badly and he was right. Scott wouldn’t take it from either him or Derek that he couldn’t play lacrosse until he could get the change under control. How the hell he ended up with an idiot for a best friend, one who through that a high school sports game was worth potentially murdering someone for was beyond Stiles.

“They can’t find out what you are,” Derek said, a principle that Stiles was entirely on board with. “They find out what you are - they find out about me.”

“Wow, dude - priorities!” Stiles declared. “Is that why you’re here? I thought you were going to help--” He stopped abruptly at the death glare Derek directed his way.

“If they find out about us, they find out about all of us and then it’s not just the hunters after us, it’s everyone,” Derek finished.

“They didn’t see anything, I swear,” Scott said.

“Totally - not a thing. I got him out of there the moment that he started,” Stiles chipped in.

“Sure - and look how well that one turned out,” Derek said, rolling his eyes. He turned back to Scott. “Let me make this very simple for you,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “You’re not going to play in that game. You’re not even going to try and play in that game. And if you do? I’ll kill you myself.”

“Dude! Less with the threats, okay!” Stiles protested, mouth flapping even as Scott looked truly and unbelievably terrified.

“Whatever works,” Derek growled as he pushed passed them both and out of the room.

*****

“Jackson’s shoulder’s dislocated,” Stiles confirmed, falling in at Scott’s side as he headed down the corridor after morning classes.

“I know - and coach won’t take no for an answer,” Scott said, hoisting his bag further onto his shoulder and stepping out of the way of a group of freshman girls wandering down the middle of the hall, too engrossed in conversation to be aware of anyone else. There was a hushed speed to their talk though that made Stiles think that it wasn’t just the usual gossip they were talking about. “Plus Allison says she’s coming to watch, we’re all meant to me going out afterward, Lydia’s threatening me… I can’t get out of this match, Stiles!” Scott’s voice rose as he complained, but Stiles couldn’t shift the feeling in his gut that Scott’s issues were the least of his problems, that his friend really needed to get his priorities sorted out.

“You gotta find a way, Scott - as much as I hate to disagree with the guy that throws threats around like candy, Derek’s right. You can’t play when there’s a risk that you’re gonna do the whole switchy-changey thing.”

“But, Allison--”

Stiles stepped round the corner that would take them up the steps and past the Principal's office, then quickly backtracked, pulling Scott back so they wouldn’t be seen as he peer round the corner. There stood none other than his father, the Sheriff, in full uniforma and accompanied by a deputy, talking to the Principal.

“Can you hear him?” he asked Scott.

He waited, impatiently, until Scott turned to him and said, “Curfew because of the body.”

“Makes sense. I hate it - but I get it,” Stiles said, scowling. “I mean, my dad’s out there looking for a killer and all the while I have to sit home and do nothing because he’s decided it’s too dangerous for us to be out at night.”

“You don’t think that Derek had anything to do with this? He was there - the body - he’s a, y’know, werewolf as well. I know you can’t actually tell your dad the truth about that but--”

Stiles waved a hand, shaking his head. “Nah, Derek didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“But - how do you know? That guy has that seriously creepy vibe going on. And he practically looks like a serial killer, man,” Scott argued. “I do not like that guy.”

Stiles shifted, uncomfortably. It was hard to put into words, but he just had a good feeling about Derek. That he wasn’t a bad guy, despite the evidence to the contrary. “Derek is just scared and trying to keep you both safe. Sure, he’s going about it in a jerk way, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. I think in a roundabout way, he’s just trying to help. Like we should be doing.”

“We should? How?”

“We can find the other half of the body,” Stiles said, determinedly. There may be more clues then; something that would lead them to the killer without having to give away the secrets that Scott and Derek were holding.

\-----

_I found something. Come over._

The text from Scott couldn’t have been any more vague and unhelpful, but Stiles considered it a step up in intelligence from actually putting ‘hey, I know werewolf shit’ down in writing where anyone could happen upon it.

It didn’t take long for Stiles to get to his friend’s house, leaving the jeep parked haphazardly across the drive, one wheel on the roughly manicured front lawn as Stiles barrelled in through the front door without knocking and up the stairs. 

He’d been running on adrenaline and adderall since Scott had been bitten and the effects were starting to show, as much as he would deny it.

“Blood? At Derek’s?” he asked, as Scott gave him the news. “Why were you at Derek’s without me?” Stiles caught what he was saying and rubbed his palm over the back of his head, self-consciously, hoping that Scott didn’t pick up on Stiles’ strange disappointment that he had missed out on an encounter with the older werewolf. “I mean, oh no, that’s terrible - whose blood?”

“I don’t know, but I told you Derek had something to do with the murder. We’re going to find out and when we do, your dad’ll nail Derek for the murder and you are going to figure out how to play lacrosse without changing because there’s no way that I’m missed that game.”

Stiles stared at Scott, wide eyed as his friend threw his crosse onto the bed and stalked out of the room. First, he was impressed by how assertive his previously meek friend had been, but over the top of that was a veneer of worry that still his friend didn’t have his priorities straight. More than that, though, he was concerned that Scott was determined to pin the murder on Derek just so the guy couldn’t stop him playing in a damn lacrosse game. Which, if that was the case, it was a monster dick move of epic proportions.

The only way to keep things under control though was to go with him, which was why Stiles found himself driving them to the hospital, following Scott’s plan to break into the morgue. A plan that got definitely a thousand times better when Stiles turned from where he was meant to be standing watch and saw none other than Lydia Martin, strawberry goddess extreme, sitting quietly and reading a magazine.

Stiles’ heart caught in his throat. This was his chance, his opportunity. This could change the whole course of his life. Never mind werewolves and murders. He had finally got Lydia Martin alone. He straightened the green plaid shirt he was wearing - one of his better ones - and sauntered over. Leaning against the wall in a semblance of a cool fashion, he smiled at her. “Hey Lydia,” he said internally marvelling over how cool he sounded. It was as though his nerves had completely vanished. As though he wasn’t addressing the girl who he had for years dreamed of being the future mother of his children. As though the stakes of this conversation weren’t so high and this wasn’t a massive shortcut on his five year plan.

His strange confidence was boosted further as she smiled almost absently up at him and touched her hair as though she was about to twist it round her finger. Stiles slid down to sit in the chair at the end of the row, only one seat between them. “I hear that there’s gonna be a quiz in biology later in the week. We share a class,” he added, in case she’d missed that little fact. It wasn’t like they ever interacted and Lydia was firmly placed far higher up the school social ladder than he was, but Stiles felt the connection between them. As though they should actually be friends. There was no reason at all to be intimidated, talking to Lydia. He understood her in a way that he doubted anyone else in school did. She just needed to realise that. 

She didn’t say anything at first, so he continued talking about their class, since she seemed to be listening. It was in dismay that he watched her remove a bluetooth headset from her ear and confess that she hadn’t been listening to him at all. That was embarrassing and kind of humiliating. He would have expected more than that from her. For a moment, he did consider not saying anything about the test - he was fairly sure it wasn’t common knowledge. Their teacher just loved dropping pop quizzes into class, but Stiles had his own network of informants to make sure that he knew everything that was going on.

He decided, though, that would be petty. “There’s a quiz in biology on Thursday - since you’re in my class, I thought you might like the head’s up.”

Lydia looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly as her face took on a shrew expression. Tucking her headset into her bag, she twisted in her seat to face him.

“Tell me more. Stiles, right?” she said. She knew his name. He’d always known that there was more to Lydia than met the eye. That she wasn’t just the queen bitch, all hair and makeup and no brain.

The conversation that flowed along from the first introduction was effortless as they got into a heated debate, both easily jumping from one subject to the next, leaving the actual class syllabus far behind until the shadow of Jackson fell across them. The look on his face was stormy as he rolled down the sleeve of his maroon shirt.

Lydia shrugged her shoulders at Stiles and stood up, purse hanging from the crook of her elbow as she took over the direction of Jackson’s life without a second glance at Stiles. After all, he was far from part of the image. He wouldn’t try and deny that the snub stung a little, but he understood. No matter what was underneath, right now Lydia was all about her image.

He watched them until they walked off, wondering at the lengths people would go to to pretend to be something that they weren’t - to hide the best of themselves just so that they fitted in with the expectations of mainstream society. In a twisted way though, that was exactly what Scott and Derek had to do. Keep their secrets and keep them well hidden. Even Stiles had to go to his own lengths to fit in. The bottles of Adderall in his bathroom cabinet were evidence of that.

“The scent, they’re the same,” Scott announced as he came back from the morgue.

“What?” Stiles asked, jumping to his feet. “Why - that can’t be right. Why would Derek bury the other half of the body on his property?”

“Because he killed the girl - and now we have proof,” Scott insisted. “And I say we use it.”

“Tell me something first,” Stiles said, needing to know before they put everything on the line and they did something that Stiles felt very strongly that he’d live to regret. “Are you doing this because you want to stop Derek, or because you want to play in the game?”

“There were bite marks on the legs, Stiles. Bite marks.”

Stiles couldn’t ignore the look of concern on Scott’s face and he couldn’t let his best friend down. He didn’t believe in his heart that Derek could have done this, but if he didn’t then there would be a good explanation. Anyway, the girl deserved a proper burial.

“Alright then, we’re going to need a shovel.”


End file.
